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View Full Version : Being Battery Friendly with your Smartphone Application


Mike Temporale
08-04-2005, 11:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/03/447404.aspx' target='_blank'>http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/03/447404.aspx</a><br /><br /></div><i>"If you're writing an application that does a very simple animation that uses the CPU just 1% of the time, and you leave that animation going all night, every night, you'll cut the standby time on the phone to one tenth of what it should be. Users will have a 200 hour standby phone that will get only 20 hours with your app running. Don't do this."</i><br /><br />The other day we posted Mike Calligaro's discussion on the <a href="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8938">differences in power modes</a> between the Smartphone and the Pocket PC. In Mike's latest post on the Windows Mobile Team blog, he talks about ways to help reduce the amount of battery drain your application may be creating. His thoughts may seem straight forward, but there are a fair number of applications that break these simple rules. Something you might want to keep in mind during the design of your next/current Smartphone application. :D

Rebecca
08-05-2005, 01:03 PM
The first thing that comes to mind is Mobipocket and its battery drain bug.

When is the developer going to correct this. In Mobipocket it continues to run the processor at 100% speed even when minimized in the background.

Mike Temporale
08-05-2005, 02:27 PM
I don't think many developers realize the impact that this has on the phones battery. Hopefully, thanks to Mike's articles, that will change in the not too distant future. 8)

hotdram
08-05-2005, 02:36 PM
The software folks will probably leave it to the hardware folks (power supply designers) to handle (What do you mean you can't design a 110% efficient power supply?). :lol:

Sorry, I design power supplies for a living.
~Rob